The Mercutio Problem

by Carol Anne Douglas

  Beth couldn’t help laughing. The witches had been right that women would bring peace this time. Things were working out so smoothly. Could that last?

  “What of Bottom?” Lady Macbeth asked.

  Beth’s cheerful mood vanished.

  “Later,” Sita said. “We’ll be late for school. And we can’t disappear too long when we’re standing on the sidewalk.

  They spun back. Beth scraped her feet on the curb.

  “Don’t visit Richard without me,” Sita said.

  Beth said nothing. She didn’t want to keep lying.

  Sita gave an exaggerated sigh.

  As soon as Beth got a break after first period, she went to a stall in the girls’ room.

  She willed herself to travel to the place she hated. Richard’s hall. She was alone. She hadn’t wanted Sita to come. That might have been a mistake.

  Beth found herself in one of Richard’s mirrors. The inside was like a box. Was she trapped? There was not enough air. Panic took away her breath. She could only gasp. She touched the walls. They were hard. The box was too strong for her to break out of. All of the sides but one were opaque. That one was clouded over with incense. That must be the way to Richard’s hall.

  The incense was as thick as smoke from a fire, but she forced herself to walk through it. She choked. Her eyes stung so that she could not see. She trudged on through the smoke until she saw a light—the glow from Richard’s hall. She plunged on.

  She tumbled into the king’s great hall. The light from the torches blinded her. She heard Richard’s laugh. She rubbed her eyes.

  Finally, she could see.

  The sight of Richard sitting on his throne and chortling was not pretty, but it was a relief after all the smoke.

  “Greetings, dear Beth.” He smirked. “You came the hard way. I congratulate you on finding your way out of the mirror. Welcome back. You’re wearing your own face, not Mercutio’s. Yours is so much prettier.”

  Still choking on incense, she managed to speak. “You are the same as ever,” she said.

  But while Richard laughed, Beth realized she had made a discovery. The way out of his mirror boxes was to follow the incense. If only she could communicate that to Bottom.

  She looked in another mirror and saw the weaver, now wearing a crown.

  “I am determined to prove a villain,” Bottom intoned in a stage villain’s voice. “No, good people, I am not. I am Bottom the weaver, and I will not kill anyone. Dear brother Clarence, don’t be alarmed. I will not have you killed. Dear Lady Anne, I have killed your husband. I would kill all the world to rest one hour on your sweet bosom. No, I would not. Do not fear. I would not kill your husband.”

  Richard laughed at him, but his laugh was thinner than usual. “See how the fool tries to imitate me,” he said, but there was a slight tremor in his voice.

  Beth applauded. “Keep on, Bottom,” she cheered the player. “Give us more of Richard.” She willed Bottom to hear her. She cheered louder.

  “What a fool,” Richard said, but his gaze was fixed on the mirror.

  Bottom is getting to him, Beth thought.

  Bottom stuck on an ass’s head like the ones actors used to play his part. He put a crown on over it. “An ass! An ass! Hee-haw!” he brayed. “My kingdom for an ass! Hee-haw!”

  “Enough!” Richard yelled. “Stop this nonsense!”

  Bottom looked straight at them. He could hear Richard’s voice. Richard’s anger had made a small crack in the mirror. The incense swirled into the crack.

  “Through the smoke!” Beth shouted.

  Bottom started walking in their direction. He coughed, but the ass’s head seemed to function like a gas mask and protected him.

  Sputtering, Bottom entered the hall. He was still an ass, with a crown on his head. “This is the winter of our—hee-haw!—discontent,” Bottom chanted.

  “Go back to the Midsummer world where you came from, or I’ll kill you!” Richard screamed.

  Bottom vanished.

  Beth laughed. She believed that sunlight and moonlight would illuminate the Midsummer world again.

  Richard glared at her. “Do not imagine that laughter will defeat me.”

  “I don’t.” Beth stopped laughing.

  Then Richard began to laugh like a fiend. “Do you realize that I hid that foolish clown only to distract you from working against me? He is another character you have hurt through your pursuit of me. Freeing him solves nothing.”

  Rage choked Beth. Gasping out the words, “I hate you,” she wished herself in Bethesda, and found herself in the girls’ room.

  She went to wash her hands. No one else was in the washroom. She scrubbed harder and harder.

  Saving Bottom wasn’t enough. She still needed to save Mercutio.

  Chapter 33

  THAT NIGHT AFTER DINNER Beth sat at her computer chair, closed her eyes, and prepared to travel. She felt a longing for Verona much greater than she had ever felt before. But she also felt afraid. She remembered that Mercutio had died there as well as having lived there.

  Beth landed beside Verona’s rose stone coliseum, and remembered how Mercutio had showed it to her. She had been horrified when he told her that gladiators had once fought there. Now she thought more about what it was like to be a killer. The gladiators were forced to fight, so they were less guilty than she was. She hurried away from that place to the more crowded streets. Should she go into one of the beautiful churches that Mercutio had shown her? The Duomo, still under construction, or a smaller church? That would be a mockery, she thought. She wasn’t a Catholic. She couldn’t go to confession.

  She was Mercutio in his home city, the city he loved. The fragrance of flowers and ripening fruit wafted from the walled gardens. The scent of oregano and basil drifted out of the homes.

  It was her home. She felt as if she were walking down her own street in Bethesda, transformed to a place of much greater beauty.

  But it was also Tybalt’s home, or it had been. Her stomach lurched. He had lived on these streets. He had smelled these smells. She had cut short one of his lives.

  Beth hoped that she wouldn’t meet any Capulets. She could never tell Juliet what she had done. Juliet would be angry that her cousin had been killed again. And what if her father, Lord Capulet, heard that she had killed Tybalt? Would he try to kill her to avenge Tybalt, in the endless cycle of violence?

  Some urchins waved at her and called, “Ho, Mercutio!” She waved back, but hurried on.

  A young woman with uncovered fair hair curled her finger and beckoned Beth. The woman winked. “Ah, Mercutio. I was just longing for you.”

  Beth gulped. “I am so sorry, but I have no time at the present.”

  The woman pouted. “You know that you have nothing to do but play. You have found another girl to play with. I am so sad.” She sauntered closer to Beth.

  “Don’t be sad. You’re the prettiest girl in Verona,” Beth said. “I am running an errand for my cousin, the Prince.”

  “That is a poor excuse. I must make you remember me.” The girl threw her arms around Beth and kissed her on the mouth.

  Beth realized she had to let the woman linger for a moment. Yes, the woman’s mouth was soft, but she smelled of garlic. Beth pulled back and squeezed the woman around the waist.

  “It gives me great pain to pull myself away from you, lovely acolyte of Venus, but my cousin will be angry with me if I do not do as he says. Perhaps I can visit you tonight.” Beth touched the woman’s cheek, then moved away from her.

  The woman pouted again. “Only perhaps? You are cruel. Go serve your pompous cousin. I don’t care.”

  “I am cruel to myself, not to you. Thank you for permitting me to tear myself away.” Beth bowed to the woman and walked off, not too fast because that would be insulting. Thank goodness she’d had practice as Viola.
/>   Being Mercutio was wearing her down. She felt jealous of the woman. Mercutio had kissed her, but he had never kissed Beth because she hadn’t let him. Beth suspected that his relationship with the woman was nothing she should envy, but she did anyway. It was ridiculous to fall in love with a guy like Mercutio. She would stay away from guys like him in her own world.

  But if she could save Mercutio, she wanted to kiss him. Just a kiss, nothing more.

  At least meeting the woman had made her forget about Tybalt for a minute. Beth remembered him again. She walked in the opposite direction from the Capulet mansion.

  She turned a corner and found Romeo. The luckless lover embraced her.

  “Mercutio! I thought you were dead.” Romeo’s huge eyes teared.

  “Take me to a safe place and I shall explain everything, you old fool,” Beth squeezed Romeo’s shoulder. She feared that she would give herself away. How could she deceive Mercutio’s friend? But she had fooled Tybalt, so why not Romeo?

  “Good. Let us go to the olive grove.” Romeo hurried on. “Do you have some wine?”

  “Am I Mercutio? Am I not a devotee of Bacchus almost as much as of Venus?” She proffered her flask.

  Romeo drank. “Very fine. Wherever you’ve been they have good wine.”

  Beth drank also. “You know that Richard III had me killed by Tybalt.”

  “Yes.” Romeo gritted his teeth. “I avenged you. And then what happened?”

  “I cannot reveal all that I know. But Richard is plotting to change the endings of all Shakespeare’s plays, and I am gathering characters together to oppose him. He has already brought together a formidable band.”

  Romeo stared at him. “And you truly oppose changing the endings?”

  “I must. If Shakespeare’s plays are altered, the whole world could change.”

  “I had heard that there was a man posing as Mercutio, and I heard truly.” Romeo glared at her. “Mercutio wanted our play changed. He wanted to live.” He drew his sword. “Die, imposter!”

  “No!” Beth cried. “I can’t fight you. Stop.”

  Romeo slashed into her chest.

  Beth collapsed. The blood seeped out of her. “Don’t trust Richard, I pray you, my friend,” she gasped out.

  “How dare you call me friend?” Romeo stabbed her again.

  Beth hurt so much that the wounds must be real. She groaned. The groan gurgled in her throat.

  “I will bring them back to life. Juliet, Mercutio, even Tybalt,” Romeo declared. He stalked off, leaving her alone under an olive tree.

  Tears of pain streamed down Beth’s cheeks. She had never guessed that Romeo would be the one to kill her. She hoped she could live again as herself after this was over. But did she deserve to live, now that she was a killer?

  She thought of Merlin, but he had sent her to die. The orange juice hadn’t been enough to save her. She wished that it had given Arnie magical powers. Arnie would want to save her. Maybe Arnie would be grossed out by her Mercutio body, but he would save her anyway. How funny. She loved Mercutio, but she thought of Arnie.

  Mercutio, she thought. I am you. Where is my other body? Where is Mercutio? We must be linked. I must be able to see where you are.

  She saw a room hidden away somewhere in Verona. Of course, his body had been held in Verona all the time. He was in a tower, not the tomb where Romeo and Juliet had been. She saw a staircase.

  She dreamed that Arnie climbed the staircase and found a large wooden door. He tried to open it, but it was locked. Of course. Was it a magical door, or an ordinary one? There was no keyhole. He looked as if he were trying to puzzle out the problem. She willed him to solve it.

  Beth groaned with pain. Would it never stop? She should cease struggling and die. That would end the pain.

  She saw Arnie stare at the door. “The spell must be something Shakespeare wrote about doors,” he murmured. “The porter’s scene in Macbeth? ‘Here’s a knocking indeed.’ The door opened, but all it showed was a second door. ‘Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in his own house,’ ” Arnie said. “Hamlet.”

  The door creaked open, revealing yet another door. It was pointed at the top and was decorated with a stained-glass window.

  “How fortunate that the spell’s so simple,” Arnie said. “Mercutio’s own line. ‘‘Tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church-door.’ ”

  The door flew open. Mercutio, or his body, was lying on a bed.

  The body twitched.

  Arnie rushed over to him. “You must be Mercutio. Wake, Mercutio. Please wake.” He shook Mercutio. “You must wake to save Beth. She’s dying to bring you back to life. You’re able to move now only because she’s dying in your body. Bring yourself back before she dies.”

  Mercutio’s eyelid flickered.

  “Wake! You must wake to save Beth!”

  Mercutio’s head moved just an inch.

  Arnie pumped Mercutio’s chest as he would to revive a drowning person. “Wake! Wake!” Arnie cried. “Beth needs you. She’s dying for you.”

  Mercutio’s eyelids fluttered open. “Beth? Queen Mab? Dream?”

  “Yes, Beth! Get up, get up!” Arnie grabbed Mercutio’s arm. “Save Beth, save Beth!”

  “Beth?” Mercutio’s hand grabbed Arnie’s arm.

  BETH FELT THE BLOOD seep out of her. Would her life pass before her eyes?

  It did. There was a woman, holding her, and she was struggling to get out of her arms and pick a flower. Then she was running along a marbled hallway carrying a sack of something wriggly. Frogs. She ran into a bedroom and put a frog under the sheets. It was Mercutio’s life she was reliving, not her own.

  She was climbing trees with a young Romeo and some other boys. They stole apples.

  She tried not to think. She was sure there were parts of Mercutio’s life she didn’t want to revisit.

  She saw a girl winking. No, she tried to put the picture out of her mind.

  She saw herself, but through Mercutio’s eyes. She looked prettier than she was.

  She saw Tybalt. She felt her blood surge with rage.

  Her blood. There was less and less of it. Cold seeped into her.

  She could hear her breath gasping and rattling. Everything was going dark.

  Beth woke. Her breath had stopped rattling, and sounded almost normal. Someone put a pomander to her nose. She smelled oranges, roses, and cinnamon. She opened her eyes. She raised her head. She was in her own body. Still cold, but alive.

  Mercutio moved the pomander away from her nose. He was good-looking as ever, but his face was pale and his forehead was lined with worry. “I thought I was seeing my own body!” His voice shook. “But now you’ve turned back into Beth!”

  Tears streamed down her eyes. “I didn’t die,” she said. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to live.”

  Mercutio bent over and kissed her on the mouth. “Beth, dear little Beth,” he said. He stroked her hair. “You have brought me back, for however long. You are brave beyond description. Who tried to kill you?”

  So this was what it was to be kissed. It felt nice, but his lips were cold, and so was his hand. Mostly she was glad to be alive. And she wasn’t some princess in a story. His kiss had come after she woke up, not before. She rubbed her eyes.

  Arnie stood behind Mercutio.

  “Hi, Beth,” he said. He sounded as if he had aged fifty years.

  “Hi. Did you bring Mercutio?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled.

  “Beth, who tried to kill you?” Mercutio repeated. His hand touched his sword.

  “It was Romeo.”

  “No!” Mercutio gasped.

  “Don’t blame him. He could tell that I wasn’t really you.” She enjoyed the sound of her own voice. She was in Verona, but she no lon
ger sounded like Mercutio. Mercutio had kissed her, so she must be in her own body. She looked at her hand. It was a girl’s hand.

  “That fool! I’ll batter his addled head.” Though Mercutio’s voice was angry, he took his hand off his sword.

  “Romeo believed Richard, who said that there was a man posing as you. It was I. Merlin put me in your body to die and bring you back to life,” Beth explained. Though her voice was her own, it was weak. She struggled to speak clearly. “We must help Shakespeare. There’s so much to tell you.”

  “Richard!” Mercutio spat out the word. “I will do anything I can to oppose his schemes. Forgive me for ever believing him. Forgive me for deceiving you.”

  Beth remembered her anger and pain at learning Mercutio had deceived her for a long time. He had been Richard’s agent. He had helped Richard gain access to her brain. Glad as she was to see Mercutio living, the thought of how much suffering he had brought her made her catch her breath. “I forgive you,” she said, but she knew she could never forget. She loved him, but if she had ever been in love with him, she didn’t think she was any longer.

  “Thank you for your generosity.” Mercutio kissed her hand.

  The touch of his lips didn’t thrill her. She had kissed hands herself, and thought it was a stupid custom. “I was you, or almost you,” Beth said. “I nearly lived inside your brain.”

  Mercutio’s face flushed. “What thoughts you must have seen there!”

  “Some, fortunately not all,” Beth replied. “I’m glad to see you, but I want to go home now.” Saving Mercutio filled her with pride, but she felt more tired than heroic. She had wanted to see him for so long, but now she just wanted to sleep and know it was not the sleep of death. “We can discuss Richard later.”

  “And Tybalt.” Mercutio’s face flushed with anger. “If he ever lives again, I must kill him this time.”

  “He did come back. I killed him.” Her voice broke. She fought back tears.